


4 times

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 23:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6214843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iris drives Barry, after he fails his driver test, to visit Henry in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	4 times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malariamonsters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malariamonsters/gifts).



> For merdandmore who actually had the idea for this fic

4 times. Barry has officially failed his driving test four times now. This is the fourth time and the driving instructor looks at him with a pity in his eyes that makes Barry smaller. Way, way smaller than his actual 6 feet of height. Joe had already told him that if he failed again he would have to wait a couple of years, maybe finish high school, before he gave it another try. His throat ties in a knot as he walks back to the passenger sit, where apparently he belongs, and Barry has the ride back unoccupied enough to imagine Iris’ face. Iris, waiting, siting on that stupid cold bench, her tiny body swimming under his sweater, the grey one she had stolen from him, probably freezing, waiting for him and his failure to return.

God he hates this. He hates that she’s so good at it. At driving that is. Hates that she was the one who drove them to that stupid Bon Jovi’s concert with just a learner’s permit, violating the time restriction, and a couple of other laws and Joe never even suspected it, the car back at its place in the morning, before he got back from the precinct after a night shift, in perfectly pristine condition.

Barry hates that Iris is so much better at life than he is, and when he’s feeling small like now he likes to torture himself a little bit more by reminding there’s no way in hell he would ever charm her enough, that she would ever fall for him, not when she could capably kick his ass, not when she never needed him for anything. 

Not when he needed her so much. 

He knew she loved him but it wasn’t how he wanted her to, so sometimes he wished she didn’t. 

It was like digging in an open wound, painful but strangely satisfying.  

So he steps out of her hug of consolation. He doesn’t want her pity, he doesn’t want her feeling bad for him. He doesn’t want for her once again to see him humiliated. He bites the inside of his lips to stop the tears from falling and Iris drives them quietly back home.

Later that night, after Joe went to bed and the house is silent she sneaks into his room, into his bed, and he knows that pretending to be asleep didn’t work when she places her cheek on his back, between his shoulder blades, and he can feel her warmth through his t-shirt, and Iris whispers in the nape of his neck;

“I have an idea.”

He doesn’t answer her. Doesn’t ask her to elaborate. All his effort going into him not reading anything (that is definitively not there) in the way her arms close around his waist. Thankful for the fact she can’t see how red he’s gone, praying she can’t notice him growing warm to the point of melting skin and blurring vision.

Just like sometimes he wishes she didn’t love him, he also, sometimes, wishes she wouldn’t touch him all the time. It’s just a reminder of the things he can’t have. That her breath on his neck will never be something other than Iris doing her best to console him.  

And she continues anyway, probably used to the way he gets really quiet every now and again, wallowing in self pity.

“Tomorrow, instead of you taking the bus to go see your dad I can drive you.”

“You have boxing training on Wednesdays.”

“I know, which is why you should be so thankful that you have the best best friend in the history of time”, she informs him coolly.

“I don’t want you to do that”, he says, finally turning to face her.

“Well, you don’t get to decide that, do you?”

“Iris —”

“Don’t do that, Barry”, she stops him before he even has a chance to start arguing; “I’m sorry you didn’t pass your test, I’m sorry my dad said you can’t re-take it, but don’t push me away because of it.”

“I’m not!”, he says, louder than he wished.

He knows it’s a lie though. But when pushes comes to shove he doesn’t really want her to stop loving him. Or touching him. And now he’s regretting the fact that his actions are somehow hurting her, cause there’s tears in her eyes, so he says;

“I’m sorry. Don’t be mad, Iris. Don’t be mad, please?”

She faces away from him, but she pulls his covers to her, settling in his bed, and her feet, covered in about three socks, he can tell, find his leg and he wants to kiss her so much it hurts, but he doesn’t. He just thinks that in one year and a half he’ll no longer be living there and Iris will no longer just decide she’ll spend the night on his bed, so he enjoys it while he can.

* * *

So Iris drives Barry to see his dad a couple of times. 

It scares her how Barry, sometimes, a lot of times recently, will just suddenly grow colder, avoid touching her, or worse, jump out of her touch. She’s afraid that they’ll finish school and he’ll go off to the fancy university he will undoubtedly get into to and she’ll loose him to the world after that. 

So Iris is selfishly glad that on those 45 minutes it takes for her to drive him to see his dad, and then the 45 minute ride back, Barry needs her.  

In the third or fourth time she takes him she’s even more pleased by the way he bashfully asks her if she wants to go in, see Henry too, instead of doing her homework, like she usually does while waiting for him, “and freezing her tiny ass in the cold car”.

She’s so happy that for once he’s reaching out for her, like he used to when they were kids, that she jumps out of her sit and tell him;

“I don’t care how tall you’ve decided to grow, you are the one with the tiny ass between us, Allen.”

And he laughs his best Barry-laugh and it fills her chest with something she can’t describe. Maybe it’s just happiness.

And Henry is not one of those boring adults than just love to comment on how much a teenager going through a growth spurt has grown. Iris has never understood how grown ups seem to be so resistant to the passage of time. She later thinks that Henry might not be because time must pass real slow for him, but he just asks her how is school and what she’s thinking about doing in college and then some questions she’s happy to answer about Barry, who turns really pink by her side, letting out a complaining and dragged  _daaadd!_

On the ride back Barry seems much happier than she remembers seeing him in a while, nerding out about some species of fungi that does something to the ants and she smiles at him, quietly, not really paying attention, praying this Barry doesn’t vanish away. She misses his happy noise.

When she parks in front of their home she looks at him, afraid of what she’s about to ask, afraid of the gloom waiting her;

“Hey, Bear, uhn — maybe let’s not tell my dad I went in today?”

To her surprise he smiles softly at her, grabbing her hand, the one still resting on the parking brake, and he rubs his thumb on her knuckles, sending an electric shiver up her arm and down her spine, as he says, nodding small;

“Sure.”

She smiles back but can’t find anything else to say. It’s only when they are settled in front of the TV, fighting for the remote that Barry speaks;

“Hey, Iris?”

She thinks it’s a subterfuge, he’ll surely get her defences down and sneak the remote away from her, but actually he just looks her right in the eyes, from the other side of the sofa, his pretty green ones darkening in his stare, and he nods and says;

“Thanks.”

And she’s not exactly sure if it’s for the ride, for not taking his no for an answer, for going in with him or for all of that, but she takes it.


End file.
